Dirty, rotten, shameless SOBs…
Who am I talking about?
Well, if you ask most people – those words above are associated with people in business.
Plus you can throw in a few more choice ones like “greedy”, “rip-off”, “crooks”, etc. Or some well-worn phrases easily slip off the tongue like “Filthy Rich” and “Money is the root of all evil”.
Throughout history, in the media or just day-to-day interaction entrepreneurs and business owners have been negatively portrayed?
In fact, just today in the car with my Father-in-law he mentioned a company with a multi-billion dollar 1st quarter earning and how ’sickening’ it was. Like it should be criminal to earn that kind of profit or something immoral was done to get it.
Why?
Maybe it’s because we haven’t quite had the words or perhaps a big enough reason to defend ourselves?
A few months ago, while at Necker Island, one of guests there, Jon Butcher, showed a video to everyone there during our Virgin Unite brainstorming session. We didn’t know what to expect but we politely obliged.
After it was done, it seemed to have a tremendous impact on everyone there including Sir Richard Branson. You see, Jon had taken a lot of our thoughts on entrepreneurship, value creation and even the morality of capitalism that were swimming around in our heads, and finally expressed it. Yes, in our hearts, as entrepreneurs, we seem to instinctively realize as “producers” we provide incredible value – but have never stopped to put it together in this way.
The original video was pretty rough around the edges and after our reaction at Necker Jon went back to his house to polish it up. I believe it’s only been seen a few dozen people so far and I told Jon it’s time for the message to be heard by tens of thousands of entrepreneurs. I posted it below so you can view it. I must warn you it’s a bit long – 15 minutes and 10 seconds. But the points raised are incredibly important because the stakes (as Jon will explain) are high.
Check it out and leave a comment – would love to hear your thoughts.
Note: Jon is the founder of ‘My Lifebook’. It’s a new innovative life development company to help you create your own dream life. I have not had a chance to go to Chicago yet to experience – but I will be soon.
* Update: Some people are having trouble with the video – I’m asking Jon to upload to YouTube also. *
Additionally, as I was thinking about this topic I also came across the transcript of “Francisco’s Money Speech” from Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shurgged” (one of my all-time most influential books). I think it’s especially pertinent.
“…If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose–because it contains all the others–the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money.’ No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity–to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality. Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters’ continents…”
You can read the whole speech here.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I always knew Entrepreneurialism and money making was never an evil or “disgusting” thing, but never knew exactly how to justify it to the narrow minded thinker. This video is that very justification!
August 1st, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Great video! Years ago I had to change my paradigm and how I looked at entrepreneurs and making money. My life and the life of those around me has been better ever since. The world thrives because of entrepreneurs. This video shows that while there is always a bad apple or two, entrepreneurs do a lot of good for the world. Thanks for sharing it Yanik!
August 1st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Yanik
could you please upload the video to youtube?, because it show me “Veoh is no longer available in your country”
August 1st, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I want to say a big thank you to you Yanik for recommending reading Atlas Shrugged. I read it and my mind has never been the same again. The epiphanies and paradigms shifts that reading the book brought about for me, in terms of capitalism, religion and morality, are something I am so glad to have had.
Something struck me when listening to Warren Buffet’s MBA speech when he talked about if you could design the world you’d want lots of goods and services so that people can live well. Surely life should all be about people living well and that entails production on a wide scale so that people can have material things they want to make their lives enjoyable. I don’t care how spiritual someone says they are, ultimately it is material goods that allow us to survive and flourish and entrepreneurs provide a large percentage of these things.
There seems to be far too much focus in the world on addressing problems and far too little on achievement and progress, which conversely, very often create solution to these problems which are present.
Keep up the great work Yanik and everyone , in case you haven’t already done so, read 1984 and see what the world is like when creativity and indivualism is actively repressed.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Jon was very illuminating and told it like it is about money. It’s not evil and
most business people are in business to help others succeed and be better
people.
Thanks Yanik,
Mark
August 1st, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Wow, what great timing! I’m in the last chapter of Atlas Shrugged, the John Galt speech. The book is a manifesto of entrepeunership.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Thank you for sharing this timely wisdom. People in general are ignorant about capitalism, even in America… especially as of late. It’s a shame and quite scary for the future prosperity of our nation and we need to have the courage to speak out!
Some months ago I bought the domain 21st Century Capitalism.com And I have felt the hate and resentment in our culture as of late, toward those who prosper or desire to create wealth… to the point that I did not develop the domain because of the stigma that could be attached to it.
As far as the Biblical context of money… in the Old Testament (the roots of the Christian church) the reward for those who loved God and whom God loved… was wealth. The richest men in the world were those favored by God. Maybe some “religious” people resent wealth… although in some religious circles that is changing. God doesn’t begrudge us that right. He is the “giver of good gifts.” He is the giver of “abundant life.”
Thanks again… it is good to see that there are others that see the current culture of “haters” and ignorant small minded socialists parading as compassionate… who would deny us all life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I am not as wealthly as I plan on being… You guys are truly an inspiration to millions. Thank you for your example and for paving the paths to prosperity for us all.
Be Blessed!
Mia
“Empowered To Prosper”
August 1st, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I believe that people do not like the methods used by most capitalists to gain profits.
The educational systems in the “world” is useless because it suppresses people’s ability to be creative and most people end up getting a “job”/working for someone else and having no access to the employer’s business plan so that they can actually make a significant contribution as a partner in the biz sectors.
The “make money” idea came about during the last business depression/1930s, and most people were paralyzed with fear and doubt. For a little while, less than a hundred years later/today. the world experienced a boom with new ideas and business exploded around the planet which brought us to where we are today.
The problem however is they did not think of changing the educational system and now we are heading back to another biz depression which reveals to me that the methods used to get out of the last depression was merely a band aid solution and has no real foundation to withstand the growth under this system
Only a few became rich, the rest mere paid slaves in the manufacturing houses.
And on top of that, the north pole is melting away, the air is foul, and many have to put up with disasters brought on by severe weather conditions.
And still they keep offering what is bitter as something sweet mostly in the agribiz sector. Also, the capitalists who are in control think they hav ethe right to invade, plunder and steal, and speak with a language full of deceitfulness via the media. AND, most governments have become pimps stealing tax payers dollars to keep those same capitalists demagogues in business.
We need to go back to our own mind and be the landlord of it an utilize it for the good and for betterment of all peoples based on developing a vibrant mind for the purpose of creating intelligent pleasure. A vibrant mind is the key to the future of this planet because the true/real income for everyone on this planet is freedom.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:16 am
I’m also unable to view the video. I’m located in Shanghai.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:29 am
[...] video was on Yanik Silver’s Internet Lifestyle Blog. I submitted it to DIGG. DIGG it! This is the comment I left on Yanik’s Blog… Mia [...]
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:51 am
[...] From Nicola: Wealth Coach Diaries” for the other mention….it is with many thanks to Yanik Silver for posting this inspirational and moving video about entrepreneurialism, on his blog. This [...]
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:59 am
[...] Der Link: Dirty, rotten, shameless SOBs [...]
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:00 am
Yanik, thanks for this – awesome stuff.
I have posted it on my blog, facebook profile, myspace profile and will mention in my ezine next week.
Funny, we were only talking about you yesterday (my little boy had lost his laptop which he carries around in an Underground UK bag and we only realised after a week that we had TWO Underground UK bags….and the lappie was in the other one hidden in the wardrobe!)
Great event, great video, great blog. Man! Necker Island looked fun…I would love to meet RB one day.
And I hope to play poker with YOU one day LOL
Have a great weekend.
Nicola
http://www.TheMoneyGym.com
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:34 am
[...] just finished reading an article on Yanik Silver’s blog and simply had to spread the message shared within. the video provided below nails the core issue [...]
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:36 am
Great video with a superb message. I just had to share this one on my blog.
As someone who had to live in socialist society for my first 21 year I know first hand the “good” it can deliver. US is fast on its way to join what used to be the most hated (and rightfully so) way of life…
People are getting wrong message and videos like this helps us to defend what is right.
Alex Sysoef
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:40 am
- I get a hot chocolate,
- I lean back
- click play
…and what do I get:
“Veoh is no longer available in your country”
You know what – I get so much stuff from Yanik, I’m sorry to have started with a complaint. Yanik, thanks for all the brilliant, thougt provoking, smart stuff!
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:42 am
Hi Yank,
Man, I love this stuff. I have always felt bad about the way our society treats the businessman. I use to be in business offline for many years and know exactly how the majority of people think about you. It is wrong and as was brought out in the video it really is our own fault for not doing a better job of teaching others the true value of entrepreneurship.
I would like very much to post this on my blog with the video if that is alright.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
Yanik, this is a terrific video. I cannot understand why people feel it is wrong to want to better your life, improve the lives of your family, and your friends and your community. How did the pursuit of a better life become such a bad thing?
I agree that self sacrifice in the pursuit of helping others is the ultimate in morality. But is that not exactly what entrepreneurs do? We sacrifice what we can have today, so that we can have something better tomorrow. And that ’something better’ is the legacy we give to the world.
Whether it be a new medicine, a safer mode of transport, or a way out of the poverty trap, it is the entrepreneurs of the world who deliver it.
Susan
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:22 am
Lifebook appears to be good.
It can be great if it can offer a solution that enables you to live out a HAPPY AND MEANINGFUL LIFE.
Even if you accomplish creating and implementing your Lifebook “successfully,” you may still fall short of feeling and experiencing a TRULY HAPPY AND MEANINGFUL LIFE.
The solution to your life problems may not be complete without being able to answer the questions concerning:
Who am I?
What am I here for?
To help answer these fundamental questions of your life and existence, you may have to ask additional questions such as:
– Where do I come from and where am I headed for?
– How should I live my life here and now?
– Am I living my life the way I should?
Without being able to get the answers to these questions and live out your life the way you should, your life and the life of your family and your loved ones will remain “unhappy” at best, although other people and the world may appreciate and benefit from the jobs and prosperity you create as an entrepreneur.
And I hope your Lifebook will strive to be more than “good” but a great guide to your HAPPY AND MEANING LIFE you will be able to live.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:36 am
[...] just finished reading an article on Yanik Silver’s blog and simply had to spread the message shared within. the video provided below nails the core issue [...]
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
The reason the non-rich person hates the rich person is because, generally, the rich person can screw with the non-rich person (by firing him, buy raising gas prices, by shifting a tax burden, etc), and the non-rich person has no recourse but to bend over and take it.
Unless, of course, the non-rich person has made himself relatively impervious to such things, by education, experience, side income, etc.
Most people don’t do this – they are caught on the hype of “buy now – pay later” which makes them economic slaves to the people they hate.
Having grown up raised by a young widowed mother who worked in a factory for min wage, we bros and sis got education and experience that allows us to work for bosses, but not be enslaved to them.
My goal with my online business is freedom, not wealth.
Thanks for reminding of this, Yanik. And thanks for this blog. It fills a need that the “run of the mill” gurus don’t address.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:52 am
Inspiring and accurate video.
The awareness of the “money believe system” is by itself extremely valuable and positive for change in society.
Some food for thought…
As history and metaphysics teach, whatever you give attention to, grows. What you resist, persists.
So, I believe the approach to this subject could be more on building the good and promoting the benefits of entrepreneurship, in regards to pointing to all the “opponents” that entrepreneurs have.
As a great master once said, there are only 2 kinds of people in the world:
- Those who know, and
- Those who doesn’t.
We, as entrepreneurs, KNOW.
Most people don’t know.
The only real “enemy” is ignorance.
But it is ONLY thanks to this ignorance that we thrive:
We found a way to get out of it, it gave us the contrast, and now it can give us a framework to approach “our people”.
As entrepreneurs we have bigger responsibilities, but we love them.
Is nice to find like-minded individuals share these ideas on video.
Is inspiring to know others follow their passion and take responsibility as a way of life.
My best wishes to the author, My Lifebook and any enterprises taking place.
Cheers,
Omar Regalado.-
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:28 pm
[...] it's not that easy, but this video from Yanik Silver can be found over at his blog Internet Lifestyle. This is exactly what I was talking about yesterday. This is some difficult stuff, but I think you [...]
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
If you’re going to quote the Bible to make a point — use the proper context. The Bible says, “The LOVE of money is the root of all evil.” It does not say that money is the root of all evil. The Bible never implies that wealth in and of itself is wrong. It only becomes wrong when it becomes the most important thing in a person’s life — an obsession. When money wins out over the love of God and living a virtuous life i.e. the pursuit of peace, faith, love, gentleness, goodness, and self-control, there’s a problem.
I also have a problem with Jon’s opinion that self-sacrifice and serving others financially are mutually exclusive — not true. Both are equally good — or equally bad — depending on the motivation of the individual.
I’m a business owner, and I have NEVER felt that people look at me as some kind of villain — because I truly care about helping the people who do business with me. It might mean I have to send them to a competitor whose better equipped to help their particular situation, and that’s fine. It’s more important to me to make sure their needs and desires are met than to snag a few bucks off of them.
If you want to create a sea-change in attitudes toward entrepreneurs and businesses, that’s the place to start — with your own attitudes and actions about business.
Whether wealth is good or bad will always come down to one thing — what’s driving the person who is pursuing it.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:18 pm
This is a long response.
Hi Yanik:
Jon Butcher’s video was excellent, and I wish I had received its message 50 years ago when I was beginning to set down my ambitions for my life.
At 16 years of age I decided on a life of public service (i.e., military, civil service) for 20 years to be followed by a role as educator, driven largely by my moral desire to do good in the world. While these are important and worthy career pursuits, in looking back now from age 57, I understand that I could have achieved my sense of purpose, which I now call G4I (express the oneness of everything in God, so do only Good, and enable General Management Capabilities, to achieve Global improvement) far faster and more effectively, efficiently, and successfully if I had followed an “entrepreneurial” path instead. Or better, if I had at least operated a parallel entrepreneurial effort with my morale-intention public service effort, thus enabling me to: 1) do good, 2) create capabilities, 3) gain wealth, 4) apply wealth to do dramatically more good, 5) repeat continuously.
I believed as a youth, from my environment’s influences, that business as not compatible with this G4I pursuit (e.g. as in the song “sold my soul to the company-store”). Note the distinction in my mind between the terms management and business. At the time, “management” was a method of achieving a purpose, and “business” was a purpose and path filled with moral and ethical peril (i.e., the bible’s quote on “easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle that for a rich man to get into heaven”).
As a youth, I had no concept of business or social/charitable entrepreneurship. I also had only a vague concept of leadership, which I now know is dependent on good management to envision a mission and measurably achieve communicated / cohesive / coordinated / collaborative / controlled progress towards a coherent / configured / controlled / changing vision of success. Entrepreneurial efforts are very clear examples of change-leadership with high-risk and high-reward odds.
As it is now, without the entrepreneurial (i.e., new-vision, management, leadership) effort to create capability, gain wealth, and apply wealth, my lifetime efforts have largely amounted only to the “do good” phase, with no means for me to achieve growth in my ability to do good, other than through the good, and entrepreneurial, efforts of others (given my ingrained suspicion of the motives and behavior of “business-people”).
Those with vision need the tools / resources to implement that vision. My youth, family, education, and spiritual insights gave me vision of G4I as a “means” to achieve this purpose, but no clue as to how to muster the “tools / resources” to do it. I have learned that envisioning, desiring, and praying is never sufficient to achieve the vision – it has to be implemented by purpose-focused and adaptive actions until the purpose is achieved.
I was raised in the South, to a morally and ethically expressive family, which I consider to have been a very good family to come from. However, what I ran into in my youth was the “Bible belt” cliché that “Money is the root of all evil” (instead of the more accurate biblical expression that “the love of money is the root of all evil”, i.e., putting money and material things as a priority ahead of God, planet, life, people, society, friends, family, self). This distorted prohibition on money came from the background of my good mother, our family Protestant church, and to some degree from my schools and colleges. My father was striving to be an entrepreneur, to dramatically improve farming methods in the south, to introduce labor -saving and productivity improving technologies to farmers. He had the vision/means/technical knowledge for this, but had no business-training/production-tools/investment-knowledge/partnering-skills to bring it to form beyond his own daily and mostly-solitary work.
My US public school education and church lessons gave me the skills to get a job working for someone else – period! They did not educate me on how to keep a job, progress in that job, grow beyond the job, form my own company, achieve my own purposes instead of just supporting other’s purposes, etc. They didn’t even teach me how to have a conversation or manage and grow my money. The little education I had on business up to age 25 was on inventory control, process, and accounting functions, which are functional jobs to be performed and managed by someone else. Until my military-Officer training and Master’s Degree schooling, I received almost no information on management (e.g., defining mission, stating the vision, identifying measurable goals, specifying success indicators of goal performance over time, defining strategy to achieve the goal success indicators, developing and comparing plans, gaining advocates and resources, implementing and adapting the plans, tracking performance, measuring performance, assessing outcomes/results/outputs along the value-chain, adjusting the preceding to repeat the next management cycle).
I find it interesting that most entrepreneurs I have encountered, those who create and grow new companies, did not come up through the typical US education system. They are largely immigrants or those who received non-public and more cosmopolitan (e.g., non-US-focused) educations and came from successfully entrepreneurial families. They were able to gain the education and vantage point for successfully achieving their purposes, without the morale handcuffs and blinders of the US educational / religious systems’ emphasis on “money, and thus the business of making money, is evil”. In my early experience and education, only earning and giving money was seen as good and pure.
By the way, “evil” in my definition, is perceiving yourself as separate from the oneness some call God, and thus acting as though the world around you, and the people, life, and resources in it, were separate from you (i.e., your body and mind), and thus exploitable by you as expendable resources. This means that your soul and spirit, as the container and source of the oneness giving life to your physical form, are discounted or rejected by you as “not real, not important, not tangible, not sensed, not known, not accepted”.
This sense of separation and thus evil-acts corresponds to a “materialist” viewpoint, largely supported by the now-deprecated “mechanical universe” and nihilist view of Newtonian physics, where entropy was seen as winding down time/space/energy/matter in the universe to a dead cinder. The more correct and provable recent “spiritual” view from the area of physics called post-quantum physics (read the works of Bernard Haisch), show that the universe is known to have a dynamic, intelligent, and living aspect as its root, and the universe is now known to have organizing / creative / adaptive / pattern-forming / pattern-expressive negative-entropy traits of intelligence / time / space / energy / matter which give continuous universal growth and expanding life. Entrepreneurship, like the concepts of the American Constitution before it, are oneness-inspired organizing / creative / adaptive / new-pattern-forming / new-pattern-expressing aspects of the provable “living universe” within the larger one container and source of all things.
I now know that “making money” (not just earning it and sharing it) by creating new business capabilities and capacities, is a true creative act. It is just as creative as the artist who creates a painting, sculpture, or song; or the scientist who observes the world, theorizes, proves, and makes consistently reproducible some universal aspect; the engineer who envisions, designs, specifies, and implements a new technology; or the mystic who explores ways to sense and perceive connection with each other through the world / universe / oneness permeating us, and then comes of up with new ways to express and communicate that perception.
Making Money is expanding the creative capability and expression of the universe, which to me is expanding “the good”, and expressing what I call “oneness”, where there is only one thing, and everything else within that new thing is interconnected, interdependent, unique, and distinctive. Adding a new component to that oneness enriches it and everything within it. Making new capabilities to create, grow, and distribute money through the creativity of entrepreneurship, enriches everything, just as does shared art, science, technology, and insight. Business, and specifically the highly successful and high earning creative businesses, are the production entities that are most capable of achieving massive good.
Roy Roebuck
703-598-2351
roy@one-world-is.org
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Excellent video by Jon Butcher – I applaud his thinking and his ability to express it so eloquently!
I’m sure most ethical entrepreneurs have had similar thoughts even if they have never verbally expressed them so clearly.
This is a critically important issue that should be shouted at the tops of the mountains. (or spread across the largest media possible)
Having been an entrepreneur since childhood, I see the ethical entrepreneur as today’s undiscovered rock stars.
Call me an optimist, but I believe there will come a time when the ethical or social entrepreneur receives more than just the financial remuneration they deserve for providing value in the world, they will receive society’s highest accolades as well.
After all, what type of value does today’s culture of celebrity bring to the masses? A mild snickering and feeling of superiority, perhaps, that our “little” lives are not as screwed up as the latest pop princess or good looking actor?
When you attempt to compare the “value” that the entertainment business capitalizes on to the value that an ethical or social entrepreneur provides through an ethical profit motive, it is almost laughable, because there is no comparison.
It can be argued that sports stars and rock stars provide value (entertainment and positive state change) though the value provided is very temporary.
I believe ethical entrepreneurs are the unsung “rock stars” of this new century and, even though it will take some time for the world to recognize that, it will be so sweet when they do – and not because I feel any need to be in the limelight.
More importantly, it’s because that will make the world “right” and will cause many more people to embrace the life we’ve chosen. This in turn will cause massive positive social change in the world.
Jon makes an excellent point in saying that the reason we’re losing the battle for our youth is that we lose by default – we are too busy running our companies to engage in this war against the socialistic higher education system.
The embers of the socialistic regimes are still there, being fanned by the liberal and socialistic college professors who have likely never actually been engaged in the “real world” for very long in their lives.
Theirs is a lifetime of studying idealistic theories – many of which have failed so long ago, yet, because they have never had the “real world” smack them in the face in any way, shape or form, they have devolved into a deeper and deeper pit of socialistic idealism.
The sad thing is, Jon is right – when my 15 year old daughter goes to college in a few years, do I really want her learning at these sad idealogues’ feet?
That is one of the stinging questions that Jon brings up in this video and I, for one, want to be a part of this battle.
Thanks to Yanik, for being one of the “good guys” in the Internet lifestyle medium and for exposing us to this excellent video!
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Yanik and Jon,
Thanks for making this video available and putting out this important concept. I’m in the health business and it is critical for people like me who want to help others, but who also need to be profitable to understand how to be professionals and money-makers at the same time. I look forward to taking the concepts of self-actualization and making them my own.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you again.
Cinda Crawford, host of the Health Matters Show
http://www.healthmattersshow.com
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
FIRST LET ME SAY..
I am an entrepreneur.
BRAVO!!! WELL DONE!!! and NEEDS TO BE SAID!!
But noticeably incomplete.
Jon, you make a lot of good points about wealth creation, poverty, and self-actualization that I’ve been making in my Ethical Business Workshops.
We do have a lot of screwed up ideas about business and morality, but you WILL NEVER win the hearts & minds battle unless you clarify a few things and address the full truth.
Mainly, you must address the slivers of truth that draw people to “the other side.” In this short of a video it’s hard to tell if you are making these fallacies or not, so I will start by saying that I am making some guesses based on the tone of your speech.
If you are ignoring these, your promotion aint’ worth sh**.
ONE: The Capitalist System is a product of Social(ist) Enterprise. Without government (the boogeyman of so-called “libertarian free-marketists”) No Market, No Supply & Demand Exists. When you demonize government or socialist enterprise, you are biting your system’s own infrastructure. There is a need to look at this relationship objectively instead of having knee-jerk reactions to words like government and socialist.
When you go to the grocery store to buy apples and use your ATM card, there are tons of government forces that allow this to happen in a free-market way. There are contracts between you and your bank (the ATM), the store’s bank and you, laws that enforce that you won’t simply steal from the store. There are laws to enforce that once you buy them, your apples won’t be stolen from you.
Furthermore, there are regulations (another knee-jerk word) in place that mean you can make the assumption that everything in the store including the apples is safe to eat. What if you had to worry about whether what you buy was going to kill you or not? (Kill you immediately or kill you years down the road as polluted water does). It would totally wreck free enterprise. Many people you label as on “the other side” are not trying to destroy free-enterprise. They are trying to help it. Poor regulation and poor legal process ruins free enterprise.
Like it or not, government and free enterprise work hand in hand.
Free enterprise does not exist in a vacuum. You need both.
TWO: A System those elements that are drawing the most from it are not putting an equal amount back in, is not a sustainable system. If you want free enterprise to stay, you’d better nourish the infrastructure that allows it to exist. Anything less is hypocrisy to the nth degree – and immoral. There is no doubt that when you have nothing for capital – like we all have when we start, you have almost no leverage in the system. If you have lots of capital, you have all the leverage. In fact, you can sit on your ass and make money from investing. (Is all “investing” wealth production?) If you are a stock-holder, investor type or any business person with this kind of leverage, it is not “you” that has the leverage.
It is the system that has the leverage and nobly gives it to you.
Overthrow the system and you overthrow the leverage. No system, no leverage. No wealth. (People just steal what you have or the computer dollars disappear). For this, we should be grateful to the (healthy functioning) capitalist system for giving us so much. The moral action is to give back and nurture its infrastructure to the degree that the system has given you leverage.
But this is not what happens. Many of the wealthiest agents (outside of folks like Bill Gates & Warren Buffett) often try to screw the system (like Enron) or worse, slant it even more in an uneven skew of lies (like Rupert Murdoch or T-Bone Pickens).
Most entrepreneurs do not deserve to be put in the same categories as this ilk, but we sure ought to understand the legitimate reasons that people believe business is trying to screw them over. (Because a lot of big business is).
So-called defenders of the capitalist system are calling for lower taxes on the highest leverage Americans – particularly corporations. This is not a help to a healthy capitalist system, nor is it an act of gratitude toward this wonderful system.
It is a crime against it. This is ANTI-capitalist.
The moral act is to give back what you receive.
THREE: Adam Smith Never Said “Greed is Good.” Period.
What he did say a healthy capitalist system (I think the best possible economic system on human earth) should make greed a function of the common good. We should not design a system (like we currently have) where self-interest defies the common good. If we did, it would make the system a function of immorality.
Say its early Boston and I own a goat. You also own a goat and so does everyone else. Every day we go to have our goats graze on grass in the Commons Area. Then I buy a second goat and so does my neighbor and his neighbor. This buying the extra goat is a great economic boon to me, but all the extra goats begin to strain the Commons area. If this persists, the commons will produce no grass and all the goats will die. There will be no wealth for anyone. You notice this and recognize that if you get a second goat, you will only be contributing to the problem. I roll by and tell you that I’m doing so well, I’m going to get a third goat!
At first my self-interest served the common good (or at least was not antithetical to it). By having a goat, I could produce more goods for others and take care of myself as to not strain society by being a “charity-case.” Now my self-interest, getting more goats, is going against the common good. My self-interest could destroy the wealth of everyone.
This is a dysfunctional system and something Adam Smith warned against. Relying on others to give up their self-interest in the interest of the common good is an unfair position to put them in (the one you in the story are in) and should be avoided where possible.
We live in an age where the resources of our planet are not so infinite. We are in or getting close to an age of global commons crisis, yet anyone who tries to bring this up is labeled a “commy”, “jealous of others wealth”, or is given ridiculous answers like “I have a right to make as much as I want. Self-Interest is Moral. Jesus wants me to be prosperous.”
The truth is that self-interest is only as moral as its ability to balance and rejuvenate the Global Commons. (… and the market is also a Global Commons).
If you understand this, it should not surprise you as to why people see the capitalist endeavor as evil. They are, of course, many times confusing healthy self-interest (which is creative, freeing, and pushes new possibilities for all human kind) with self-interest disconnected from the Commons (which is unsustainable and takes from those who already have less). They are confusing healthy Capitalism (which nourishes its own system from within) with Plutocracy (where money is used to mislead others into bondage), and they are confusing Business (which is the act of trading resources, creating wealth, and putting something back into the system that helped facilitate that wealth creation) with Pillaging (taking whatever one can get, not giving a damn about the consequences to others).
But this does not mean that Disconnected Self-Interest, Plutocracy, and Pillaging aren’t happening. You can’t cover the sh** with incense and call it roses. Instead you should bury the sh** and plant roses.
Smell the stink others are complaining about even if they are confused about its source.
Many in your position marginalize these very real issues. That is why you lose the debate (not for the reasons you list in your video) because you do not address the full truth, only the convenient truth.
Freedom is a noble goal, but not when it is disassociated with our shared commons and our shared reality.
Anything less is rationalizations.
And immoral.
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Yanik,
Thank you for sharing this powerful concept. It touches on what’s missing in our educational system and culture–the benefits of wealth and power of what it can do to help us all.
Rick, the non-rich trap themselves by buying into the “money is the root of all evil” belief we’ve all been taught. The parenting and school system are guilty of promoting this thought, but religion has been the biggest culprit. This single wrong-thinking has kept us trapped in a hopeless dilemma–the need for money to live our lives, but guilt for amassing lots of it. It keeps the unenlightened forever sabotaging their own attempts at wealth.
Instead of hating the rich I say observe them. Learn what they did to get where they are. Not all wealthy people are moral, just as not all poor people are virtuous. But one thing is for sure, we need money to do good in this world.
There’s nothing wonderful about being penniless, sick and homeless. Mother Teresa, for example, certainly didn’t think so. That’s why she dedicated her life to helping this segment of our world.
She was a humble, but tremendous force in helping the poor. She didn’t earn the money directly that funded her programs , but her passion and dedication to her mission persuaded many people and companies with money to help her achieve her mission.
Until we love what money can do for good we don’t deserve to have lots of it.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Wow! Excellent comments all around, all adding much more food for thought.
I’ll be entrepreneurial and ask if anyone wants me to build a knowlege-model of this video and discussion so that it can be further explored, elaborated, and acted upon.
Roy
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:48 pm
I have a question for “Alex Says: August 2nd, 2008 at 3:52 pm”.
I cannot find any connection between your “THREE POINTS” comments and Jon’s video. I do not see him discounting the: 1) Capitalist System, 2) Sustaining Foundational/Infrastructure capabilities, or 3) Protecting the Commons.
I agree with your points, so ask: what words in the video led to a direct connection with your three points, or what led you to infer an indirect connection?
By sharing your understanding and perception of this connection, you will help me to understand and perceive your message in relation to the video’s message.
Roy
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:11 pm
It occured to me in listening to Jon’s video again, that some of the information I provided in my first comment could be expanded to help frame Jon’s stated issue in a structured form.
I described the “sequence” of general/typical management activities as “defining mission, stating the vision, identifying measurable goals, specifying success indicators of goal performance over time, defining strategy to achieve the goal success indicators, developing and comparing plans, gaining advocates and resources, implementing and adapting the plans, tracking performance, measuring performance, assessing outcomes/results/outputs along the value-chain, adjusting the preceding to repeat the next management cycle”.
I now would elaborate on that by stating it again, with the additions in UPPERCASE text, shown next.
“Management IS DETERMINING AND SPECIFYING NEEDS, defining MISSIONS TO ALLEVIATE ONE OR MORE OF THE NEEDS, stating the vision OF COMPLETE AND PERFECT NEED ALLEVIATION AND THE VALUES AND PERSPECTIVES FORMING THE CORE PLANNING AND OPERATIONAL POLICIES, identifying measurable goals, specifying success indicators of goal performance over time, defining strategy to achieve the goal success indicators, developing and comparing plans, gaining advocates and resources, implementing and adapting the plans, tracking performance, measuring performance, assessing outcomes/results/outputs along the value-chain, ASSESSING THE STRENGTHS/WEAKNESS/OPPORTUNITIES/THREATS OF THE MISSION PERFORMANCE, AND adjusting the SUBSEQUENT MANAGEMENT CYCLE TO IMPROVE NEED ALLEVIATION PERFORMANCE)”.
I submit that if entrepreneurial organizatons, and all organizations or endeavors, made public the information shown in UPPERCASE in the preceding management life cycle, they would go a long way to clearly communicate their moral and ethical intentions and efforts to fulfill human needs. Regularly sharing this information would give them the moral high ground, market position, and the mindshare they deserve.
Roy
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:11 am
I loved the video! It’s great to see how you’ve grown over the years Yanik! You’re a great entrepreneur and a great benefit to society.
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:27 am
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August 3rd, 2008 at 6:40 am
I actually got tears in my eyes. He put words to my thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings I didn’t know I had. Not only did I found out that I have been embarresed about being an entrepenour, but I also rediscovered a huge dream I have. So , I can’t you enough.
Sincerely, Gry,Norway
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:12 am
Right on Jon!! This speech is so very fitting during a time when, in my opinion, the freedom we as American people have been so blessed to be able to live, and the Americans right to capitalism is in danger of being taken away depending on what happens this November. It is also ironic that just last night during a dinner party I was trying to explain to a friend why she shouldn’t hate the companies that are here providing jobs for people and offering services to people. It was amazing how, thanks to certain politicians and main stream media, she believes that companies don’t pay any taxes!!
I too once was one of those people who thought corporations and people with money were greedy and evil. I wish I had come to my senses earlier in life than I did. Now I am working hard at becoming my own entrepreneur and I am willing to speak up against those who think I am doing a bad thing.
I live in the area of the country that is very liberal and therefore hold many socialist values and ideas. It is a struggle everyday to get my beliefs heard. If there is anyway I can help I will!
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
I don’t agree that socialism and communism are totally rejected by Western society. Western countries inch towards socialism every day, with every new government program and regulation. Plenty of people in the media and halls of higher education espouse socialistic policies.
Anti-capitalist sentiment is founded on envy (I want what they have), frustration (I wish I could do what entrepreneurs do. How do they do that??), and the zero-sum fallacy (that there is a winner and a loser in every transaction, there is no such thing as win-win). Good luck eliminating those mental disorders!
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Yanik, serious suggestion:
From a marketing perspective, minds are changed more (amongst other reasons) with a bigger medium; In the longest term, by Hollywood film themes and memes.
Could maybe you, Richard Branson, Mike Filsaime, Jon Butcher – I don’t know who else you might be able to involve – pool resources, get together and create a blockbuster film that expresses the values Jon outlines in his video?
Maybe you could organise the production of a modern film version of Atlas Shrugged?
A relative of mine is fairly big in merchandising and licensing of film characters etc – she works fairly closely with Stephen Spielberg (contact me for details – I cant name here). I am not sure it is Spielberg’s thing [maybe I am wrong] but I am sure she would know the right people. I am sure she would be happy to help.
Either way, I am sure that, in conjunction with a more grass roots education, the concept needs to come from the ‘top’ down – ie a big blockbuster “everyone’s seen it” type medium.
I am happy to help and I am sure others would too …
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Hey Yanik
Thanks for that. Man I can only imagine what must go on at Necker Island and look forward to experiencing that in the future!
Loved Johns video. You could really feel the passion and the purpose radiating and that lights me up.
CHeers
Rich
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:02 pm
I have some feedback and a question for “Jack Says: August 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 am”.
Entrepreneurs “make” money, not in the sense of “earning” it, but in the sense of “creating totally new wealth”, by creating totally new productive and service capabilities through invention and integration. Capitalisim is based both on growing new wealth as well as accumulating it.
Communism, socialism, and many other social, economic, and religious “fairness” approaches are based on a belief in the “lack” of sufficient resources such as money. They seem to have no concept or mechanism to “increase” resources through creativity and exceptional effort – they actively suppress creativity and exceptional effort, forcing everyone towards a constrained and ever declining norm.
So Jack: Would any person or any country “inch” towards socialism if they had accurate information about the pros and cons of socialism versus capitalism? Not according to history – when information flows, socialism dies. What are the successful communist or socialist countries?. The people in education and media who espouse socialism in any degree are probably not using fact, but only emotional “fairness” rhetoric.
We all can help the poor and needy more by having the ever-increasing and distributed wealth to do so, but not by constraining everyone to a common hoarded level where the poor are lifted for a while, but eventually everyone is stifled.
You have to have wealth to do the most good. Idealistic individuals and groups are volunteers. Idealistic entrepreneurs and companies are philanthropists. Who does more effective good for the mass need? The reach of individual idealistic volunteers is local. The reach of idealistic businesses is global.
In my mind, socialism is like “eating your seed corn” to quote a cliche from farming. In this same analogous thread, Entrepreneurs go hungry for a little bit so they can grow a lush new crop, yielding more corn for consumption and even more seed corn for larger subsequent crops.
Growing and distributing (i.e., not hoarding) wealth raises everyone’s quality of life.
Roy
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Capitalism started when we went from hunter/gathers to agriculture/farming/herding. Excess, plenty, abundance for trade.
Money, the representation of the value offered, came into being for convenience’s sake.
Socialism is capitalism for the elite (self-professed, of course). It is taken seriously – for the self professed elitist.
The amount of money (net worth) a person has control of never bothered me because it’s usually at work. I’m sure Bill gates doesn’t carry a billion dollars around in his pocket – why – his pants would rip apart.
On the other hand – bury it in the sand – Saddam Hussien – 350 million – that’s outright evil!
We are born with one instinct – survival. Two and perhaps three aspects of survival are physical, mental and, if so inclined, spiritual. Out of that comes two motivations – selfless self interest and selfish self interest. Mother Theresa and Saddam Hussien.
It is all self interest, selfless or selfish. We all fall somewhere in between.
The object of honest capitalism is to create value and bring it to the marketplace in hopes of earning a profit. Jim Rohn taught me that.
War is natural. Peace is supranatural. what does that have to do with this tretise? think about it – real hard.
What I believe about money? It may not be the most important thing in the world but it sure does seem to affect almost everything that is DEAR to us.
Therefore, making honest, ethical money is good!
I applaud you, Jon. You have quite an uphill battle. Never give up.
One final thought – Hugo Chavez – what a crappy dictator! Only 60% of the vote. Any self respecting dictator easily gets 99.999999% of the vote.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:00 am
I ‘discovered’ the entrepreneurial world 3 years ago and I’ve been struggling to change my beliefs around money ever since (after a lifetime of socialist inspired education). Jon’s video is a timely reminder of the ‘force for good’ that money can provide.
Thanks for sharing this video Yanik and for yet another prompt to read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ – someone, somewhere is telling me to read this book. I cannot put it off any longer…
August 4th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Entrepreneurs are creative individuals. Just like many things in life, we can use that gift for the good (for ourselves and others) or we can use it for only self gratification. All tools can be used that way – for good or bad.
Some people we coach (www.cashflowpotentials.com) feel money is evil and we help them work through this issue. If you believe money, or too much money, is bad – then you end up allowing all the money to be in people who use the tool for bad things. Most people are good and can do GREAT things with money – why shouldn’t you have it so you can do great things with it? What would you do with it? Would you help build better schools? Help the homeless not be homeless? Help single parents?
Why not learn how to become an entrepreneur within your passion to make extra money so you can become part of the solution!!
Don’t know how? Then take the first baby step – start a small home business and use it as an incubator to find out how to do it. Make one of your goals to give 10 – 20% to YOUR cause. They cost less then $1,000 to start and YOU can help capitalism be positive. See I don’t think you will sell arms, be greedy to the point of starving others or lie to increase your profits.
YOU can do it! Stop complaining about the world and lets build a world of growth, support, caring for others and pursuit of happiness.
You are good and do great things with money…don’t let the bad buys have it anymore! When you choose to spend you money – think of where you spend it….look for someone you trust that is running a home based business who uses their profits to do great things.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Yanik,
I am new to Internet Marketing and you are one of the people I have been looking up to for inspiration. I got here through the normal buzz. I was enormously surprised and pleased to see you reference Francisco’s speech in Atlas Shrugged and outright say that Atlas is one of your favorite books.
I run a website called Objectivist Living devoted to studying Rand’s ideas. When I started listening to Jon Butcher’s video, my jaw dropped. I have devoured a truckload of material on Internet marketing over the last year and I have not heard anyone within the Internet marketing world endorse the morality of capitalism explicitly like Jon did.
Will wonders never cease…
I am going to post about this to my neck of the Objectivist world.
* Michael, excellent! Interesting enough, I believe that book is the biggest influence of top business people (after the bible). – Y.S.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I agree 150% with every word he spoke. Just awesome…Plain awesome.
Joni
August 4th, 2008 at 11:01 am
hi yanik,
i know this might not be the expected response for this article but please i would like to get my hands on those undergroundonlineseminars dvds including the best of the underground dvds. i don’t know how possible this will be but i know you always want to help out anytime you can i would relly appreciate it.
Thanks, by the way the video did not show; said something about not been available in my country; Nigeria.
Hi Eyitayo -
Right now they are unavailable – but sign up at http://www.Undergroundonlineseminar.com and we’ll notify those people of returns, etc and when the DVDs might be available again.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I can understand when folks get upset when the big oil companies post their huge earnings when gas prices are at an all time high or when pharmaceutical companies post large earnings from a new life saving drug. But people don’t understand or are not aware of the huge investment (both time and money) that was made before hand, maybe even years ago, that are just starting to earn some returns. How many dry wells were drilled or formulas changed?
As an entrepreneur myself, I recently developed a repair kit for the Maytag Neptune front loaders that have defective door latch wax motors and will burn out the control board. It is amazing the feedback I get from my customers when they repair their Neptunes and save $400. Some customers have even sent me extra money via my Paypal donation button on my site! This great feedback gives me energy to keep going so I can’t say money drives me exclusively but I thrive on satisfaction of a job well done, happy customers and I love to solve problems.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
A great and appropriate video message.
Many great comments as well.
Yes please open up the financial component.
This has helped me a lot. I have been struggling with the moral delimna on creating money by helping others. My companies philosophy is to help others become the best they can(choose) to be. I know that this will allow others to be their best.
I was having difficulty deciding a price if any to charge for my knowledge and course work. I was definetly stuck in the mind set of “it is wrong to make money by helping others”. All the usual beliefs of money running rampant in my mind. I knew all the benefits I could generate by increasing my income and the companies bottom line.
This video was the final push I needed to break through to a new belief about generating/creating money – ” I am able to increase the quality of my life, my family’s life, my friend’s life, my communtiy and the planet through the generation of millions of dollars by offering my ever increasing knowledge and products in the area of personal development”
Thank you Jon for making video
Thanks Yanik for posting it
To shifting the believes surrounding entreprenuerism
Darrell Ritchie
August 4th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
The speaker makes a few valid points but is clearly an extremist. He lumps together Communism and Socialism as if they were one. Many European countries (Scandinavia) have various forms of socialism with more freedom and a higher standard of living than in the USA. This film is nothing more than a plea for the return of the good old days of the robber barons and offers simplistic answers to complex problems.
We don’t have a “free market” in the USA. When unregulated capitalism ruled we got the Great Depression and Europe got Fascism which was as bad as Communism which was a completely regulated economy.
So things need to be socialized like defense, postal service, roads, air traffic control and other need to be free enterprise like non-monopolistic business.
This guy takes the extreme Libertarian view and paints everything black and white.
Capitalism has solved many problems for those who has the education and skills. But it has NOT solved the problem on supplying a decent standard of living to the majority of people on this planet. It has no answer to health care for millions in America. It offers no hope to those trapped in poverty. It is not the sole solution to a quality life. There needs to be a mixture of capitalism and social concern.
Our current economic system has no other goal than to enrich shareholders as Milton Friedman has stated. To pretend otherwise is wishful rationalization. Capitalism has no ethics beyond the restraints of law.
I subscribed to your emails to get information on internet business success not for politics.
You will probably turn off as many people as you attract to your new political movement.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Hello~
Marsha’s comments are very insightful and speak for themselves. But I would add the following food for thought.The powers that be who reside behind all the false facades of government, UN’s, multinationals etc are powerful, ruthless exploiters of human labour and goodness- parasites who care nothing for the wellbeing of people except as endless cogs in their global wheel of production. It takes vision on a grand scale to realise this fact because most folk are good hearted and wish only to help humanity. They believe in the essential goodness inherent in humans- a trait which often blinds them to understanding the corruption hiding behind the free market. It takes real guts to realise the truly immense machinations of these parasites lurking behind the world screen manipulating events as they would puppets via a world banking system based on usury. It takes thinking outside the box to look at the way the current manufactured energy crisis would never have happened had petrochemical industries not consistently bought up patents that meant we could all have had clean, free energy 100 years ago thanks to Tesla’s inventions alone; that of course, does not account for numerous other inventions being actively suppressed such as the Joe fuel cell and many others not requiring petrochemicals as an energy source. The machinations of global pharmaceutical and agro-chemical concerns mean humanity at large is no more than part of a gargantuan business plan that cares nothing for the health of either individuals or communities; so we are having GM monoculture, drugs etc thrust upon us, which damage both humanity and the planet. It takes courage to stand one’s ground outside the box, to look up at the skies daily and watch as aircraft lay the poisonous chemtrail grids and trails (containing aluminium, barium, lab manufactured pathogens and many other proven toxins) that coat the skies in a milky film of poison above an unsuspecting population as part of a global weather manipulation programme- the effects of which dwarf any efforts the rest of us make to counteract the effects of global climate change; but it is the general populace who have been blamed as part of the hidden global Disaster Capitalist agenda; meanwhile, the perpetrators continue relentlessly dousing senient life with the very poison that is accelerating negative global climatic change whilst making those who speak out look like liars or worse.
It is just as myopic of individuals to ignore such gross misuse of money and power that can only be described as abject evil as it is for people to think money is inherently bad; as has been brilliantly explained in both the video and the writing, money is a tool for life, no more, no less. Unfortunately, the system is currently dominated by corruptive forces that exist beyond the ken of the average, good hearted citizen. However, if enough entrepreneurs of stature and influence, of conscience and integrity- the true purveyors of the American dream- have the balls to honestly see the bigger picture for what it is and to direct their energies into the good that money can bring, the tide can be turned and our fates rended from the monstrous clutches of these pathetic parodies of human beings. Then the truly awesome power of money can be revealed for what it is when correctly used- as a tool for the amplification of those qualities which make humanity a repository and executor of inspiring creativity, the powerful mediators of forces to good motivated by wisdom and the true evolutionary drive towards the highest expression of conscious will; and ultimately, the truly prosperous and civilised society that brings happiness and genuine wealth to all its citizens.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Well said Anise. Couldn’t have expressed it better myself. so will be interesting to see what others have to say on this one as you are so right about the reality….
August 5th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Thank you, thank you, thank you Yanik for posting this. I found Jon’s video *really* inspiring…wow. And I’m happy to learn that you’re a big fan of Atlas Shrugged, too. I think it’s time for me to re-read it yet again. Keep up the great work, Yanik!
August 5th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Bravo! Thank you for sharing. I would love to chat with Jon about speaking to a group…if you could pass my name along to him, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your info on the Marketing Success System, too! I’m ready to upload my book to Lightning Source and will be submitting to Amazon this week.
***** to Yanik~!
August 6th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
@Roy Roebuck
“Would any person or any country “inch” towards socialism if they had accurate information about the pros and cons of socialism versus capitalism? Not according to history – when information flows, socialism dies. What are the successful communist or socialist countries?. The people in education and media who espouse socialism in any degree are probably not using fact, but only emotional “fairness” rhetoric.”
You’re right that given accurate information, and using rational decision-making, people would choose a free economy over a command economy. But most people don’t make rational decisions. The politicians and media use sappy rhetoric because it works. After the government strangles the economy (by over-taxing, over-borrowing, and printing too much money) the people want blood. The politicians point to ‘greedy CEOs’ as a scapegoat and the masses love it. (Because they believe in the zero-sum fallacy, they think that the rich are rich at the expense of everyone else.)
Disdain for profit stems from mental-emotional disorders (envy, frustration, rejecting responsibility for oneself). Until the masses choose to look in the mirror to solve their problems, they will continue to hate successful people, and they will vote for bigger government.
BTW what is hoarding? If you mean savings, or keeping a large cash reserve… it might not be as bad as you think. http://mises.org/money/2s9.asp
August 6th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Of course I agree with everything Jon said in his video. I too, immediately thought of Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. Now I probably part company with everyone else.
If you are trying to explain this concept to anyone, and you are attending any church, just quit it. By showing belief and obedience to any power higher than your own reasoning mind, you are bankrolling those who would destroy what you believe in.
How can you support the very source of the idea that self-sacrifice and suffering are man’s highest calling, and then try to explain why what you are doing is virtuous? You simply come across as begging for forgiveness for having the audacity to gain wealth through improving other people’s lives.
Read Atlas Shrugged again. You can’t argue logically with someone who believes it’s OK to take by force what you have rightfully earned.
I do believe that education is key. You’ve got to start when people are young. I am behind whatever program is out there for helping to teach people these concepts. I hope I didn’t upset anyone, there really isn’t enough room here to fully explore these concepts. These are things that people will continue to ponder long after we’re gone.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I’m not surprised by the number of comments that have been left regarding this video. It was a powerful 15 minutes. I have forwarded it to all of my clients and most of the fellow entrepreneurs that I have in my database. Outstanding stuff.
It’s time that we acknowledged ourselves for what we are really up to in life. I’m glad that someone finally gave voice to this marriage of business and spirit that we enjoy, but most of us don’t have words to express.
Thank you Yanik, and thank you Jon!
Much Love,
Josh Dunn
August 8th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Hey Yanik,
I think that a good example of the common assumption that productive businessman are immoral is the use of the phrase “giving back” to describe charitable giving by people who have made money.
As Jon has aptly pointed out, a person who has created wealth has already been more moral and has contributed more to society than any amount of charitable giving could ever accomplish.
The phrase “giving back” assumes the premise that, by being productive, an entrepreneur has taken something from society, and now has the burden/obligation to give something back.
I urge everyone here who respects entrepreneurship and productivity, and who, like Jon, wishes to encourage the best in humanity, to never use that phrase, and to correct others every time we hear it being used.
If you admire people who produce the wealth that brings us such a wonderful world to live in, please insist that no one use the degrading phrase “giving back” to describe a successful person who is contributing to a charitable cause.
Instead, perhaps “giving forward” would be a more accurate description. I personally love giving to causes that are meaningful to me. For example, speaking of Ayn Rand, every year for the past 6 years, I have given several thousands of dollars of free classroom sets of Ayn Rand’s books to high school teachers who request them through this charity: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=support_free_books.
I am proud of being able to contribute to a cause I believe in, and I hope that it improves the future of the world. However I cringe whenever someone mentions “giving back,” as it makes me feel like they’ve just personally insulted me and my value as an entrepreneur.
Yanik, I challenge you to be on the forefront of this movement by having the “giving back” portion of our Maverick events renamed “giving forward,” or some other term that is respectful of the moral accomplishment we have made by producing the wealth we have created.
As Jon ably points out, the stakes are high, and we must not concede in any way the common, but wrong, premise that we are acting immorally when we produce wealth. We must show the world, and especially the future entrepreneurs we aim to inspire, that we value productive activity of ourselves and others, and we consider it to be a *moral* virtue, and definitely not a vice.
* Wow! Interesting point. Well taken. I like that term ‘Giving Forward”. I will definitely consider using that for Maverick. Thanks for the additional insight. * – Y.S.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Yanik,
South Africa is BANNED from VEOH as are 165 other countries and they have been accused of racism in the extreme. I’ll be back in the UK next month so will schedule to watch the video at that time.
As a professional I know you will be dismayed to discover you are associated with such a negative organisation, let alone the limit it places on your scope.
Anyone else finding themselves blocked may take comfort in this rebuttal (fake) interview with the founder:-
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5qjbx_veoh-excludes-85-of-the-world_news
August 28th, 2008 at 5:27 am
A great quote on money comes from David Bach: “Financial education needs to become a part of our national curriculum and scoring systems so that it’s not just the rich kids that learn about money.. it’s all of us.” Teaching our children what makes sense money-wise is critical to achieving the living standards we all want to achieve.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:34 am
Hey Yanik,
Another nice post showing a different view on things. I see my way of “giving back” by providing a LOT of quality free content through my Internet Marketing Blog. OR even through products that are totally free like my latest one.
Thanks
Ray Johnson
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
As Shakespeare wrote, “Nothing is right or wrong, but thinking makes it so.”
Yet I sense more than a little insecurity in all these protestations of how much good business does. Remember that painting a picture of business as “all good” is just as much of a lie as painting it as all bad.
Also remember that business has been responsible for enslaving children, breaking heads as it broke unions, and that, historically, businesses have polluted and chose profits and self-interest over the common good.
While I applaud the idea of the compassionate entrepreneur and am, myself, dedicated to being one, that is not the history of capitalism nor its current identity. Business has earned its villification.
Check out these facts and then change the model by good works, by all means. But me thinks thou protesteth just a bit too much.
http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm
P.S. Can you say that the business of making landmines benefits humanity and is a positive for society?
While I see no “sin” in making money, note that every 3.6 seconds someone dies of starvation.
One in eight children under twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry.
Will your becoming an Internet millionaire put an end to it?
And here’s another fact, just for the heck of it:
The amount of money we spend collectively on perfume in the U.S. and the European Union is enough to solve the sanitation problems of the world AND end starvation.
The “trickle down” economy doesn’t work, else these stats would be history, not current reality.
So, fine – let’s make our fortunes. But business is not a Messiah that has solved the worlds problems. It could, but it hasn’t.
The laws under which corporations operate actually make it a breach of fiscal duty to fail to take action that maximizes shareholder profits, even if it means shipping jobs overseas and throwing families into poverty as a result.
So I agree, we do need a new business model that incorporates compassion.
November 9th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Yanik: I have been reading your emails for some time and saving up to treat myself one day soon to one of your advanced courses. One can sense, to some small degree, where a person’s heart is by seeing where their mind is. It was evident your style and approach to business appealed to me, and today I felt instant friendship. Shrugged has long been my mental cornerstone of capitalist superiority thinking because it made clear those who were looters, non-thinkers, takers were the heart of the problems in society. Unlike men of the mind who sought to increase themselves and in doing so pull up those around them. Not pick them up, but rather inspire them to act in kind and better themselves as well. Jon Butcher’s commentary struck a chord with me. In spite of the argument that we must have government and socialism in tandem with capitalism, I think the balance is tremendously out of whack.
We were warned at the foundation of this country that an intrusive government was to be avoided at all cost. But we’ve let the writings of our forefathers fade into irrelevance with society supporting a rapidly growing government increasing confiscatory tax policies every year. We’ve known even longer that charity begins at home. But, what we’ve forgotten as a nation is that it is not the place of an intellectual or a body politic to dictate what measure and to what cause our charity will manifest itself.
The challenge will ever be one segment of society trying to dictate just how compassionate the haves ought to be towards the have nots. All the while the answer lies in education and how pitifully little the entitlement mindset thirsts for it. Thanks to you and Jon for bringing some fresh discourse to the day.
January 9th, 2010 at 12:49 am
I’m a huge fan of Ayn Rand’s work, and the objectivist philosophy. Free markets, and free will lead to growth and prosperity. More government and regulation leads to less growth and prosperity.
April 6th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Another great post Yanik. I really don’t know why some people think that people who have lots of money should not. I think opportunities of life are there for everyone it all boils down to how hard are you willing to work to get it.